Episode 26: I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not (2025)

M hm, weird, weird mh. I'm just trying to figure you out. I'm not going to be easy for you. Chevy Chase exciting and talented. Very very funny.

Ready to say something sarcastic or edgy. I mean, I'm fell in love with that bumbling idiot until we cut up to you. He's the asshole who you love? Can I say asshole? A lot of people will.

Unfortunately, Chevy had massive movie star hits. The force is pulling him. We're money power and all that, and when Hollywood wants you, they're pretty good at it. The thing about fame is that everything around you changes, and then of course it went down all from there. It was a mistake to leave SNL Chevy.

Chevy has a deep heart. And that's the other part of the wild man. Who would you work with him again? Are you kidding me? It's Chevy Chase.

I don't think a lot of people have the happiness I have. I am who I am, and I like who I am. We're not rolling? Are we rolling? Yes?

This whole time? I'm Chevy Chase and here hello everyone, and welcome to the epilogue of the Chasing Chevy podcast. I am your host Chris Stash. You want of your hosts, Chris Dash you from the Culture Cast, and I'm joined by my good friend all the way from the Projection Booth, Mike White. Hello, good to be here.

He's Mike White, and you're not as one. Almost said that, but then I held back. Well, well, restraint, I'm glad you practiced it and joining us on this episode. No, Mark Begley is not here. We are joined by our good friend all the way from Flick Attack.

If you have listened to Mike Show, the Projection Booth or my show, the Culture Cast, you've heard him before. He is a good friend. He is all the way from the Midwest somewhere, I guess Midwest south somewhere, probably covered in ice. Your friend and mine, Rod Lott. You're not brightened enough?

How's that? There? You go? It is like that's the clip now from this that's like taken on a life of its own. Oh boy, would it have been a big deal if it had been a man he had said that.

To I think anybody frankly right, yeah, I mean the antagonism, Holy shit. So on this episode of the Chasing Chevy Podcast, if you don't know what we're talking about. We had no intention of doing anything past the last laugh unless there was something that involved chevy Chase worth talking about. And lo and behold, wouldn't you know? In twenty twenty six, the one and I would assume only chevy Chase documentary every to be released has come out.

I'm chevy Chasing, You're not. It is a CNN slash HBO Max thing aired on CNN. It's currently on HBO Max as of the time that you're hearing this, and it is directed by Marina Zanovich. And it is a chevy Chase documentary chronicling his life career, the ups and the downs and then the reups as one might say. So it's a documentary, it's not a narrative film.

So if that's something that you're not into, you've come to the wrong place. If it is, buckle up, because we're gonna sit and talk about it for a while. We're gonna talk about it and chevy Chase. But I think, Rod, because this is this is your first time and you are August, I am so very curious because you and I had talked prior to this episode about you joining us for an episode of the show as a guest, what is your experience with one Cornelius crane Chase, as he likes to call himself. I'm sure now, Well, we had a toured affair in LinkedIn eight.

No, he forgot about it, according he prily forgot about it. I did. Oh, just like he doesn't remember his first wife's name. Yeah. I love the guy.

Maybe not as much now, but you know, I grew up in that, you know, like foul play, seems like all times under the rainbow, Modern problems, vacation, fletch, all those like that was prime time for me. I watched all those things on HBO and VHS over and over and over, Caddy shack, you know, all the all the things, and that continued into my adulthood until I don't know, like post Christmas vacation or he just kind of dropped off the face of the earth for a while. And then he started hearing about negative stories about him, and I thought, oh, that's kind of too bad, that kind of too bad that that if he's really like that. And then when he came back on community, I was kind of excited, Oh, potential comeback.

And then you hear that he's just really not a nice person and honestly, wasn't that great on the show. I think the show's overrated personally, But he's in as repellent as he comes across on this documentary. Like I dislike him and love him at the same time, if that makes any kind of sense. But he was he was like when he was someone I idolized as a kid, and like the person I wanted to be when I grew up. Luckily that didn't happen.

Yeah, Rod, thank you for being the first person to echo the sentiment that I had so many episodes ago. Chevy Chase is a person who the comedy wit behind him is enviable. I feel like he's a legend. Yeah really Yeah, But you know, but so Mike. Since I gave Rod the floor initially, I'm curious, what did you think of this documentary and how has it, if it has at all, maybe changed your perception of Chevy Chase given that you, I mean, it's you and I.

You know, Rod listened obviously to this whole show, but it's been you and I this whole time, and I'm so very curious now that this is kind of the I think, the one and only chance to get a true insight into him. Directly other than his the book that's about him. What did you think of the documentary? What are what are your thoughts on Chevy Chase now? Post watching the documentary.

It didn't really shine any light on things that I wasn't aware of, other than it really cemented just what an asshole he is to me. I mean I had heard rumors. I mean when we talked about Memoris of an Invincible Man. You know, there's all the John Carpenter's stuff of him going on the record. Very I mean a lot of people have gone on the record about what an asshole he is.

But to have so many people all in one place, all for like a two hour documentary, just all telling their Chevy stories, and I mean I think the first person to call him an asshole is one of his daughters, which is wild to me. And the director off screen is like, that word's going to come up a lot, and yeah it does. It's not so so many stories of this and yeah it's in this whole thing, Like the documentary also comes with all the media coverage of the documentary, and I was just so amazed. So I'm not answering your question, Chris, is what be prepared I'm not going to answer your question right now. I was amazed at just how, through this being a CNN, HBO thing, how the media conglomerate was just in the pocket of these companies putting this out.

You could go back into Variety's Facebook page or Variety dot com itself. There arequote unquote news stories which are but just basically press releases news stories about chevy Chase, but essensibly about the documentary almost every single day from starting like mid December, and it's just like one thing after another after another, and it was just chumming the water of all this stuff. You know. Chevy Chase calls out SNL for excluding him from the fiftieth Jevy Chase on how SNL has changed, Chevy Chase's SNL made a mistake. What else.

Chevy Chase had a full meltdown on the community set. Chevy Chase might have had heart failure, was put into a coma for eight days. Community crew yelled fuck you Chevy at rap party after few between actor and creator Dan Harmon, Chevy Chase and Jamie Chase on the carpet at SNL fifty. It just goes on and on and on, And I was just like, this is amazing just the amount of and I have to say it was probably just all, you know, just one hand washing the other when it comes to just the manipulation of the media where it's just like, oh, yeah, sure, every day we're going to run a Chevy Chase story in order to basically promote this documentary. Is it a good documentary?

Yeah, I think so. I think it's very well made. It doesn't really show me a whole lot of new stuff other than the a leged abuse allegations that are in this It's interesting where those come in the film, and I definitely want to talk a little bit more about that. But yeah, it was insightful. I can't say it was enlightening.

I've watched it three times now. There are certain parts that I fast forward, especially where it's Chevy in the world where he thinks he's a lot funnier than he is. But the interviews I thought were great. There's some really good, good interviews in here. And it's funny like some of these people between the time that they were filmed and this has been released, have already been canceled.

I'm already looking at you, Nelan Chris. I'm curious what did you think about this? I have mixed feelings for a lot of reasons. Uh, Like Rod said, chevy Chase is someone who ostensibly I looked up to. I guess, I mean, I don't know how that sounds.

I don't know what that means. I mean, I Rod, you're smirking, because I mean, I'm sure you've struggled with that phrase, Like what the fuck does that even mean? To look up to or idolize someone who you could never even interact with in a substantive way. And it's it's really interesting because I think for me it was very telling in the documentary who they got to sit and talk about the influences in their career, namely Ryan fucking Reynolds, who is essentially just Canadian Chevy Chase in a lot of ways. Oh.

I love that he owns up to it though, well, I'm just doing a chevy Chase impersonation. And Van Wilder, Yes, yeah, it was pretty obvious. Yeah, And like you know, for me as someone who spent a lot of time watching Fletch, you know Jay Chandra Sakar, who another person who I respect him men for their ability to create film in a vacuum of you know, what they were doing in the late nineties, early two thousands with broken Lizards. To hear him talk about Chevy Chase and even you know, again, someone like someone that I'm sure we all have maybe mixed feelings on with, Kevin Smith is even in here talking about Chevy Chase, another person who a lot of people have mixed feelings on. But for me personally, I respect Kevin Smith im mentally for his drive, for his tenacity, for his ability to make film and do film in a way that has elevated a lot of people in his life that would never have been able to do any of those things without someone like Kevin Smith.

Really, like you know, go in to bat Form, you know, Jason Muse or a lot of the people I mean that he works with. So those people talking about chevy Chase I found very interesting. I found it very much exactly what I was hoping for with this documentary because for the longest time, Kevin Smith was and we know why Kevin Smith was in this documentary, because Kevin Smith was for the longest time involved with a reboot of Fletch that never happened with Jason Lee or Ryan Reynolds or Jason Sudeikis or whoever the fuck was on the list that year of people to reboot Fletch. Obviously it ended up happening with John Hamm and oh Greg Matola, I think, is who ended up directing it and writing it. So it was interesting to see the Fletch of it all because I am you know, obviously Fletch is kind of my in terms of my chevy Chase films.

It's the chevy Chase. But you know, all of that about just the basics of the documentary aside and the people they talked to as someone who experienced similar things to what chevy Chase is alleging. There is part of this documentary that was very uncomfortable for me to watch because I understood more directly why chevy Chase does what he does. Personally. I understood it because I understand that sentiment in my own way.

You know, comedy was for me and still is in a lot of ways of coping mechanism to deal with the things that are very unpleasant in life that I deal with a lot of it internally meant, but a lot of it is also you know, I've shared with you know, y'all. You know, personally, some of the stuff I struggle with. So listening to chevy Chase talk about it and this having been the first time I'd ever heard anything about it, I think for most of us, this was the first time. Was I think, like you said, Mike, enlightening in a way, and for me it was kind of you know, sobering and I mean sad. I mean again, for me, it was personally some of this documentary was very sad to hear all the personal asides aside, Uh, it didn't really change anything for me because, like you said, Mike, chevy Chase is a prickly guy, hard stop.

That is just what it is. Like. There are people like that. We have all met people like this. Like I think what's interesting is I don't think he's any more of an asshole than anybody else.

In the end, I think he just allows people in the industry to see who he is more directly than most people do in the industry because in the industry you're kind of expected to play nice. I mean, they talked about it in the SNL portion of this, where it's like this mother fucker was giving people notes like yeah, that's improper. I guess sort of. But at the same time, I'm not sure I would be any different if I were in that position, and I'm not sure i'd get upset if someone gave me notes. But at the same time, if you're an artist and you feel X, Y and Z about your craft, I understand how that would come across one hundred percent.

So there's part of it where I'm like, he's an asshole, But you know, I've interacted with worse people like directly consistently throughout my life. Chevy Chase, sure he seems like an asshole, and I'm sure to a lot of people in his life he has been an asshole. But I think for me, the stories of him being an asshole have probably been exaggerated about twenty five percent more than they need to. And look, if you rub people the wrong way, you rub people the wrong way. That's just is what it is that I mean, Look, that's just gonna be the way it is in any industry, regardless of Chevy Chase or down at the mail room at the at the UPS.

The difference is people at ups aren't in the public's fucking sphere all the time, so you don't know about it. There are assholes like Chevy Chase walking around us right now. It's just they're not given an opportunity to go and make asses of themselves constantly on a on a public stage and have their you know, worst vices exacerbated with Because let's not forget the other thing that is a huge part of this documentary, cocaine and lots of it. Coach Star. Yeah, well, it's interesting because I disagree with that because, yeah, you know, you can be an asshole and everything, but he is so just outwardly an asshole, just antagonizing the filmmaker, and it's like, this is the chance where you can put on a good face and try to be a different person, but he's just letting it all hang out and just openly antagonizing her.

And he keep saying things like that. No, that's my question, Not that's my point, Like I'm not, like you said, like, I just think it confirmed he's an asshole. To me. I'm not sure it made him look like any more of an asshole than I've already heard. I'm not sure how it could at this given everything we've heard, like him going to a movie director.

You don't have the bandwidth to understand me like, yeah, not surprising, Like yeah, uh fucking Orson Wells or any of these other kinds of people who hold themselves in high regard. If these kinds of things that ever happened with them, you know, they would have said the same kind of thing because they are so convinced of their own place in things, which in some cases I'm not sure chevy Chase is wrong. But there are better ways to go about doing it, I think. Is the thing I take away from this more than anything else, is like, there are better ways to go about getting your way than kind of being an ass to everything this. You know, we live in a world of so called cringe comedy.

This was a cringe documentary for me, just seeing him avoiding questions, yelling at the filmmaker, yeah, questioning her intelligence and those things. He keeps saying that, well, you're not going to include that in the documentary, and it's like, no, she is going to include this in the documentary, Like you are being the person that everyone expects you to be right now. So my point is I'm not sure he's not. I think that's just him. Oh yeah, yeah, can't can't help himself because there's nothing to help you know.

I do have to give him credit big time that he even sat down for this, because you know, it's an attempt to probably start, you know, making the steps of his legacy, because he is very old and not in great health. He's getting probably toward the end of life, maybe even sooner than we realize. But he didn't have creative control. He gave himself over for this and knew what he was in for. But I think, I mean, he's got balls to do that.

But I also think that he maybe expected she might go easier on him than she did, So I have to give her credit too for not not you know, falling to that. Well you're seeing the other people she's done documentaries. Yeah, No, there are no slouches either. I mean Jesus Christ, Twin Flames, Lands arms Strong to. The Yeah, exactly the point though that I think my main problem, Yes, a ton of people are assholes.

I think my problem with him is that, like Mike said, he's so outwardly about it, but also he wants to have it both ways. So like the they bring up the Terry Sweeney story but from which I'd read before in that SNL book Life from New York, uh and He laughs at the joke, which I have to say, I have a dark sense of humor. I find it funny even to this day. But he laughs too and says, you know, that's me. But then he goes into saying that you know, he thinks Terry Sweeney is a liar and that my memory is he's lying.

I you know, I didn't you know, why would I know, apologizing to that sort of thing. And then he turns on the filmmaker and he's like, I have to live with that for the rest of my fucking life, because you guys got out a book and read that to me, and he's just he reminds me, Yeah, he reminded me of a certain politician that we all hear about every day, speaking of head lines all the time. Yeah. It just like he rubs me the wrong way, don't get me wrong. Like I still like him as a performer.

It it like I knew he was an asshole. It's tough to see that so brazenly, and especially at his age where most people mellow. I don't think he's like he shows glimmers of getting mellow and atoning for his sin, so to speak. But then he turns around and he's just old chivy. Again, we're expecting that when people get older they mellow.

Yeah, I mean my dad is one of those people. I mean, I guess the old people in my life that I knew did not mellow out with age. So that's why I was like, I just assume as people get older, they just become more irascable and irritable. So I guess you choose path, right, Yeah, and. Then everybody else in your life has to make assumptions for the rest of their lives about the way old people are.

Oh yeah, but yeah, I mean he lives in a public guy. We don't. I can't imagine that. And the fact that he went from nowhere like no, you know, nobody knowing anything about him to SNL on that incredible first year. I mean I say that like it's monumental and TV going back and now looking at it, it's like, Okay, it's not really that funny, but I get, you know, like it is a momentous event.

And then going from that in one year to co starring with Goldie Han, like, how the fuck does that happen? That is quite the climb and pun not really intended, but did they sleep together? They kind of insinuate that maybe they did. That's I mean, that's got to do numbers on your head to go from nowhere to front page of magazine and on the big screen. And we know it did a number on him.

But man, I still think he's he's wrestling with that even to this day, and the fact that it's not there anymore, I think is his problem. Now. It's like, why why aren't I back on there? I deserve to be back on that stage. I deserve to be back on the screen.

And it's like, man, you burn too many bridges. Maybe well, And that's that's the thing that for me to watch, which is hard, is to know that there is, there is were, and in some cases could be still opportunities to do better on his part, and he's just not taking no in some ways and in other ways he is. I mean, look, I think it's really nice and I think humanizing to see his family, his daughters, his wife, like people in his life that he has treated well. And that's the thing, Like, like you mentioned Rod with a certain politician, I'm not sure his family would even go to bat for this mother. But yet Chevy Chase's family is and Goldie Han does, and there are people in the documentary.

I mean, look, even Jay Chandras Sakar, who did not have a good experience with him, at the end was like, of course I'd work with him again. He's Chevy Chase. And in a lot of ways for me, that's like that's almost you know again, to go back to it all, that's almost the trump card argument here. It's like, there isn't anyone else like chevy Chase. So you either work with Chevy Chase and you fucking deal with it, or you'd don't.

And look, there are people like that in the industry. Is the issue like Orson Wells, Marlon Brando, those people, however, the level of success they had it validated them acting that way in a way. I mean, you know, we talk all the time about Alfred Hitchcock in the way he treated the female actresses that worked for him, you know, Tippy Hedron obviously being one of them. And it's like, you couldn't do that anymore, but yet look at what he got from his actors by doing it. It's not okay.

But yet, like anything else, this is part of what this industry does to people. Like you said, Rod, it it kind of amplifies the worst thing about you in a lot of ways. And Chevy Chase, clearly his ego is his driving force here. And if he could get out of the way of his own ego for five minutes, which I mean, he probably can, but it's you got to get out of it long enough to stay away from it and stay out of its way. And I think, like so many people, it's much easier to just lean back into that, fall back into that, and you know, when you're on cocaine, which exacerbate I mean, as someone who's a fan of professional wrestling, the eighties in professional wrestling was rife with cocaine and people making bad decisions, and Chevy Chase's you know, story is really no different than a lot of the stories of professional wrestlers doing cocaine at the same time, or comedians of the same time.

Like imagine, if Belushi had lived longer, there could have been a documentary about John Belushi and how many people he pissed the fuck off and made I mean cause again, like the issue is, some of these people had the benefit of dying young, and so we don't know how if they could have gone on and had a Chevy Chase, you know, swan dive off the end of their career into the empty pool where you know, someone in the documentary puts it very athlete. It's like he was an asshole on the way up. What do you think he was like on the way down? And it's like, holy shit, I don't even want to know. Well, but let me getting up one thing that the documentary does not bring up.

When he did the Friars Club roast in two thousand and two. You know, they show on Comedy Center every year. They couldn't get in of his friends or people he worked with, except Beverly D'Angelo and I think maybe Paul Shaeffer, everyone else on the on the what they call it the Days That or whatever, like, none of those people knew him. Like people hate him so much they won't even show up to roast him like that. The industry will put up with a lot of bullshit from you until you stop making them money.

And then I think that's what he's seeing now, is like, oh, well now they're not putting up with that anymore. So I mean to be in that position where you pissed so many people off that no one will even come roast you, that's pretty that's pretty hard. But and she is. Both those people are in the documentary, right, Paul Shaeffer is and Beverly Dangelo but briefly, which I thought was interesting because she's one of his biggest defenders in the press. The other thing that they didn't talk about was we talked about this a little bit, I think on the European Vacation episode where his physical comedy would eventually hurt him and I, you know, we talked about the drug addiction.

They talk about that, and here they don't talk about it as much as I think they might have. I seem to remember when we were recording an episode. I think it was right around the time of his TV show. I think it was like like the night that his TV show premiered, he got arrested for drunk driving something like that. So it's like he was you know, like they talk a little bit about the alcoholism, the whole thing, but like he had so many incidents and just so much drug abuse.

But yeah, they don't talk about like the pain that he was in. I'm surprised because that, you know, that could be your excuse if you wanted it to be. It could be your an asshole, your drug addict or whatever. Oh hey, I'm self medicating, you know, the old Burt Reynold's excuse. You know, Oh yeah, I hurt myself in city heat and that's why I got addicted to pain pills.

I'm very surprised that they didn't pull out that old chestnut. I mean again, I kind of respect that they didn't. I do respect that they're just like, this guy's just an asshole. Like, well, the difference is it's two hours versus like the Billy Joel documentary, which at times this reminded me of totally did in bad ways, Like that was six hours four I don't know longer, a lot longer. I watched it all over one night, and yeah, that was a very very Billy Joel.

Yeah, it was great, great documentary. And is very reminiscent of this. But we don't have to get into that, but anyway, go. Ahead, reminiscent in the way that people didn't like Billy Joel, because that's a good thing here, Like I've never seen a documentary where everybody just kind of piles on. The Billy Joel.

It's it's again, he's involved, like he's like warts and all. They do the good, they do the bad. People say great things about him, people say shit about him, Like he takes it. He owns up to what he's done in the past. He's making amends for it now.

And then they both know how to play the piano really well without reading music. Then there's it's just a super random thing. But yeah, there are a lot of parallels that, but the piano one is a big one. But it's been a while since I've seen that, but that one stuck out to me. It is interesting how many chapters he has of his life, you know, like SNL when you look at it in the long term, like this documentary does.

I mean SNL is over by what twenty five minutes in, and then it's that's like so much of his early life, that's Lemmings, that's you know, National Lampoon, that's all this stuff and SNL. And then I think it's like ten minutes of the movies, and then the movies come back again a few times later on, but like it's just a real quick like okay, and then we did this and then boom, here's now you know, like you said, Goldiehn And I don't even know if they say seems like old times. I think they Yeah, they skip over quite a few, but yeah, they go on to just have like a real quick ten minute montage of the movies and the life that he's leading. There no Heavenly Dog either, God sakes, I mean one of these major cinematic milestones like oh Heavenly Dog, and you're just gonna forget about it all together.

We didn't forget about funny Money, but they did. Mike Well. I would have loved a Di Palma documentary style like go through movie. I love that because you know, he's got great stories. To talk about, some of them I.

Possibly, quite possibly, but I want to hear that. I don't want to really do that that I was high. I would have loved to have heard more about that press interview that he was doing where he's just like, oh, you want to talk about my shirt? Well fuck you, you know, and he just like walks off, and I'm like, what the hell happened here? And I'm like, how did the rest of these guys react?

Because you've got I mean, you've got all the big players there with Ted Knight, Rodney and Bill Murray and then yeah, he just walks off. I'm like Wow, what I'd like to see the rest of this interview you here. This is amazing. That was a cocaine moment. I thought it feels like it.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I'd never seen that before, and I wanted I wanted the context. I wanted the lead up. I went into the whole story. Yeah. I mean I do have to say like a yeah, And I think I said this before.

It's very well put together. Their use of clips, very smart. I'd like how they have to remind him about his first wife, the real quick second marriage, and you know that they have to dip back into things and talk about under the rainbow and him meeting his third wife and they're on easy courtship. I thought it was really well done. And I thought that the talking heads that they did get, especially especially his one friend who talks to his teeth all the time.

I thought he was amazing. And then it was good having all his you know, brothers and brother in law and all these folks there as well, and the guy that wrote that book about SNL have his agent there. I mean, yeah, I thought that they did a great job getting a lot of different voices in this. Yeah, totally, But I think it for me provided a full spectrum analysis of his effect on people. Ye, I mean again, because to you know, like you said, Mike and Rod, like, there have been plenty of people to pile onto him throughout the years, but he has had people defend him.

And they were here, you know, Beverly DiAngelo, his whole family, I guess, I mean everybody in his family was going to defend him. But I mean there were I mean again, there were several people that defended him, and it was nice to see that too. But at the same time, it's like most, if not all, the people walked away. I think having said probably the last thing they need to say about Chevy Chase Public is kind of what this feels like, like I have nothing else to say here about this person outside of this moment to say it. And I you know, because there's a moment where it's like, let's talk about the elephant in the room, and it's like you being an asshole.

It's like the fact that that's the way they addressed it. I respect the filmmaker so much more for just being like, let's just talk about this, the fact that you're an asshole and not beating around the bush at all, like I I appreciate that a lot because again, like to just take the take the person to task like that, I think is really impressive. Chevy Chase is inability to really do anything with it is an uh uh, you know, unfortunate. But I think the filmmaker really holds herself up really well against you know, opposite chevy Chase. And I think, like you said, Mike, I think it's really well put together documentary.

Yeah, well I shouldn't go against Roman Polanski. You know, I don't think she has any fear in that. Oh god, I love all of the conflict that they have, even the you know, oh can you say that again? You know and not you know, say the earlier part this time, or like, you know, can you look at me and not look into the camera. And it's just like no, no, that's tough for me, and I'm like everything.

And then the one really telling moment for me is when they finally do you get to the childhood? I mean this is kind of almost a reverse documentary that we get into the childhood stuff, like what an hour into this? I think, yeah, And when she starts to ask pointed questions about that, how he just completely he does that whole thing where he sees a fly and smacks it on his head, And at first I thought he was smacking his head, like, oh geez, why didn't I ever think of that, just to again be more of a jerk. But no, he's even playing it up even more where he's, you know, imaginary slapping a fly and then eating it, and he just refuses to answer the question. It's pathetic.

That type of attempts at comedy that he does are pathetic. They don't work at this age. Sorry, he's lost his charm. That's the thing. He's lost his child.

I do want to jump back real quick about his family, Like first, his wife is a saint. She seems like really genuine and really loving to put up with all that shit. And I think the fact that she and his and their daughters, like Chris, you didn't mention that you know, he treated them well, yes, except for the hell he put them through during his drug years. And I do think that says a lot that you know personally, that he's gotten past that with them and that they're on the other end in a good spot. That doesn't happen with every family.

That didn't happen with my brother. You know, my brother put my family through hell and he's not here anymore because of it. But that doesn't always happen, and you know, he's lucky to survive that. And I don't know, you know, I don't think if you've really grasp his grasps how fortunate he is. He does mention it, but I don't.

It doesn't feel like it really comes from the heart. He's more like, oh, I should have been dead, versus like, man, I am so glad to be alive. I just, you know, dodged a bullet, so to speak. I think it's I think when he is as bitter as he clearly is about certain things, it is very hard to see him appreciative. And to your point, Mike, about the abuse, like he's never addressed it directly.

And what's weird is he never used like to his credit, I guess he's never used to as an excuse uping to this point, which is mind boggling to me, because, like you said, Mike, this guy has had so many opportunities to be like. It was the drugs, it was alcohol, it was my dad beaten, it was my stepdad beating the shit out of me when I was grown up. And Harry pottering my ass under the you know, the the stairwell like and locking me in closets and stuff like. All of these are again not necessarily good reasons, but reasonable excuses for why you may be acting the way that you're acting. The fact that he never used any of them is shocking because again, like, as someone who has spent a lot of time watching his movies and enjoying his movies and learning about him, especially through the process of doing this podcast with you, Mike and Mark, we've learned about him.

This is legit the first time we've ever heard. Any of this. It kind of shouldn't have been, is almost my point. Like, I understand why it was, and it's deeply personal, and as someone who has experienced similar things, it's not something you just go out and tell people. Obviously, it's that's called trauma dumping.

And there are plenty of people in the world that cannot deal with their own trauma, let alone your trauma. So it's understandable. However, you should have used that as an excuse at some point, dude, because like maybe you would have gotten some like just a little pat on the back here and there for it. But man, like that's just kind of wild to me that this was never a thing he did. That's another really Joel reference to or no reference similarity is the childhood abuse that comes into play too in that documentary.

I'm just glad they had people to corroborate it. I'm glad it wasn't just like total hearsay that his brother did back up these stories, just because it would have been way too easy to be like, oh, yeah, and I had a horrific mother and my stepdad was awful, and just to go into those stories. And I don't think he tells the stories right now. Other people telling the stories. Yeah, he is totally living in denial to me.

Well, and that's you know, for someone who has gone to therapy to deal with those things and has ostensibly, in my opinion, moved past them in somewhat of a healthy way. It's not that hard to go and do it, but it is almost impossible to get someone to do it on their own. That's the problem. You have to be willing to go and change. You have to be willing to say there is something wrong and I need to do something about it.

I didn't put myself in this situation, but I am making it worse. And that's the thing. Chevy Chase didn't ask to be abused as a kid. It just happened. However, all the decisions that he's made subsequent to his realization how much that may have affected him growing up and everything else, those are inexcusable.

And that's the part of this for me that's hard to handle is I, unlike him, have gone out of my way to get better through therapy and self learning and those kinds of things. And the fact that this guy's eighty two years old and he's still just like doing, like Rod said, the stupid little gags as opposed to just being like, no, my dad, my stepdad beat the fuck out of him, and that is what it is. And like, it's not his fault, but this behavior is his fault. That's where it's like, again, it's hard to fault him for the things that happened to him, because you can't, but you can fault him for his behavior subsequent and that behavior he made everybody else's problem, ours included. We're sitting and talking about chevy Chase having been beaten as a child, Why the fuck is that our business?

Why the fuck is that something we care about oh, because it literally affected this entire man's career to the point where he did not have the success he could have because he could not get out of his own goddamn way. Yeah, that moment when he belches and then excuses himself and then says your mistake to the director. I'm like, oh god, you know you probably think that that's really really funny. And the bit at the florist when he's buying four hundred dollars flowers for his wife and you know, learns the total and he mugs for the camera, which fine, but then he like eats a flower or yeah, prince and well maybe that's when he belches or something. But I was like, come on, dude, like those things.

Yeah. I mean, he wasn't known for his physical humor. Uh. It worked when he was in his thirties and forties, not so much now. I mean, comedy works at all.

Any of the outside interactions he has with anybody or fucking. Well, there's one. There was There was one part I genuinely laughed, and that was toward the end when they're backstage, he and his wife, they're getting ready to go do one of their Christmas vacation show. Appearances and she's rubbing mustard off his pants or something, and he says, I think I'm going to enjoy this that. You know, he's still got he's he shows still the occasionable, occasional spark of wit.

I think there is another one on stage too, where like a personal audience asks, you know, what his wife like, what's similar between or how are chevy Chase and Clark Griswold alike and or similar or something? And he answers for well, we both look the same. I mean, that's funny. And it was like, you know, sharp witted. He still got it sometimes, but those are instances where he's saying things versus doing things.

Every time he does something, it's just I don't know. It must be it has to be a coping mechanism, but it's just not. It's not funny. It is freaky. Like if we didn't know who chevy Chase was, when we saw someone do that in public, we might think something is really wrong with that person.

Oh yeah, it was fun going back and seeing Terry Sweeney and seeing Robert Downey Jr. And Nora Dunn and just remembering how awful that period of Saturday mid Night Live was just how incredibly unfunny that was. I mean the Anthony Michael Hall had that idiot savant character that he would play that was like the beginning of John Lovetts. I mean Liker Andy Quaid as doing as President Rag. I mean, it's funny because you've got cousin Eddie and you've got Rusty right there.

And I don't know if they did any sort of vacation parody on that. Didn't because I remember looking forward to that because it was like right after European Vacation. Yeah, would have been perfect. Oh god, yeah, just that that era of cast. And I would almost like a documentary just about that period of time with Saturday Night Live, just because it was so awful.

Oh gosh, it is funny that chevy Chase was one hosting. They're like terrible SNL. Well it's like, well again, like here he is dragging SNL and everyone's like, but chevy Chase came on, didn't make any friends, and it's like, to be fair, that version of SNL was not great, Like it was actively not great. So yes, I appreciate he didn't make friends, but also nobody liked that version of it, not even the people that were on that version of SNL. Liked that version of SNL.

I just wonder if he was doing cocaine with Robert Downey Junior on that. He did come back on the fifteen year Anniversary special in eighty nine and opened the show with like Lorne Michaels and then he like fell down a flight of stairs or something he killed. I mean, it was great. It was a great opening, and he wasn't too old for that physical humor. But yeah, today it's sad.

I mean, it's sad to see people get old. It is sad to see him so old and decrepit, and you know, he's got issues talking and things like that. But at the same time, it's like I feel bad for him, but because he's human after all, but he's not. You know, It's like I feel bad for him, but my heart doesn't exactly go out to him. That makes any sense at all.

I think it was pretty dicky to not include him on that fiftieth anniversary special. One hundred percent and whoever it was Lauren Michael's talk to, like, come on, put your ego aside for a second, whoever the fuck you were. Yeah, I'm surprised he wasn't. He wasn't the everyone on the stage at the very end. I did see him when that show aired, but yeah, I kept expecting him to be on it, at least just to say live from New York.

That does make sense for him to do, to be on that weekend up date. But yeah, who knows. Maybe he wasn't in the right frame of mind that day. He doesn't seem like he's all there, so maybe he wasn't like wow him already. I don't know.

Maybe, yeah, yeah, they definitely, like we said, this is pretty warts and all. I mean, the amount of attention paid to the Chevy Chase Show, which only lasted for well, it was a crazy short amount of time, like a week, two weeks something like that. It was off faster than Magic Johnson's talk show, I think, and maybe even Pat Say Jax. You know, it's just but it was just it's so legendary for being so bad. I did watch a video.

There's a I can't remember the name of the YouTube guy who will do some really good videos, and he talked very much about the Chevy Chase Show and so many clips and I'm just like, wow, I can see just the uncomfortability he had interviewing guests and him wanting to basically be the star of this show when he's talked to guests on the couch kind of thing, and just like, no, no, this is about me. You know, it's basically Cone and O'Brien when he interviews Bart Simpson, you know, no, only I made ants, you know, doesn't want to talk to the people that are there. I just want to take you want to take an over under? How many episodes of the Chevy Chase Show there were? I just looked it up.

I'm going to say seven, oh more than that? Really, okay, twenty nine, twenty nine, Okay, wow. Twenty nine, forty five to forty eight minutes wasted twenty nine times? Yeah? And was that every week night?

Yeah? It was seventh, fifteenth yep. Wow, so not even two months nowly, shit, it was odd that he even did that because his movie career was still a thing, Like it wasn't. It was that nineteen ninety three, so I mean, it wasn't. It wasn't like at its hottest, but he wasn't yet you know, box office poison or anything like that.

But I remember being excited about it again because I just love chevy Chase reading into that first show and thinking like, oh man, he and Gooldiehan, Oh how perfect and even they had no chemistry together, which is odd as can be. But oh yeah, that was like it. I didn't after that first episode. I never watched again. It did not surprise me.

If that thing failed, it was terrible. Chris, thank you for sending that link to the Hats Off Entertainment. That's who I was trying to think of. I figured because I also had seen that video. I a great screen video.

Also find it funny. I don't know if you all saw the subsequent Dorito's ad that they did the year after the show was canceled, where chevy Chase and the ad stop mid ad in reference to the joke because it was a Super Bowl commercial the next year. So nice. I mean, he can poke fun at himself when he wants to. But yeah, I think you rob to your point, like the guy who hosted that show should have been able to compartmentalize the funny that he is and the funny that he isn't, and he like all the stuff that I saw both in the Hats Off Entertainment video and then just watching clips from it.

It's like this guy doesn't even realize that, yes, your name is on the show, but you got to give some room to the other people. And it's like, why would you give a guy like this something like that and enable in my mind again just like leaning into his worst vices, like and his worst tendencies, Like he just wants to be everything's about him all the time, and now you've made it all about him all the time, like night guys. I mean, David Letterman is a funny guy, but he would know when to shut up and listen and ask really good interview questions. I know the pre interviews were the key for a lot of that stuff. I doubt he was.

I doubt Chase was even into listening to the information from the pre interviews. Okay, I'm glad you brought up Letterman because that ties back to the whole comps. David Letterman is someone who by all accounts was an asshole and maybe still is, but has again due to public scandals or whatever, has at least owned up to it and tried to make amends and seems to try to want to be a better person. But that is a good, a good point to bring up the differences there. And also the one thing that made Letterman so strong was even though he would, he cannot act and he knows he cannot act, and he never pretended that he couldn't.

Now, Chevy Chase, yes he can't act. I'm not about to say that he can't. He can't. He has limited range. I think he can be extremely charming.

But there there was and I think that plays into why he did the talk show. He didn't seem to know where the lines were drawn, thought maybe, yeah, I could. Oh I can do that too. I can do anything. I'm Chevy Chase and you're not.

It goes back to that that ego. It's the return. Yes, that's what you're saying. Bruno, Yes, I mean it's that. I mean it's that same thing, right, I mean, Mike, you mentioned the Magic Johnson talk show.

Like some I'm not saying stay in your lane. But sometimes your abilities don't translate to everything, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of To use a basic example, there are plenty of NFL athletes that could not play basketball, and there are plenty of NBA players that could not play football. But there are a small few that can do both and those people are few and far between, like a Lebron James type, like a truly gifted athletic person. I think chevy Chase is half of that equation.

I think chevy Chase is a very gifted comedian, and I think he has good comedic timing, and I think he is a funny person. To Rod's point, acting, I think he's been acting his whole life. I think that's probably the problem with chevy Chase is he's not a very good actor because he's just been acting his whole life. He doesn't actually know. We don't know who the real chevy Chase is.

His wife and family probably have gotten the closest to whatever his real version of his truth is. But he's been acting his whole life, which is why he's not the world's greatest actor, because he doesn't actually know what it's like to be real to begin with. And so this is all an act. This is all him masking and punting and you know, using all these other coping mechanisms to just you know, not deal with the fact that bad things happen to him, and he can't deal with it, like hey, man, like that sucks, but you can't drag everybody else down with you because that's what you've done. It's like it's hard to watch because like the Chevy Chase show was a thing that people spent time and money and effort on, Like that's just lit on fire man, Like come.

On, Yeah. That little clip of Ryan Reynolds I think was great where he's just like, no, I didn't know about the abuse, but it really doesn't surprise me. And he used the exact same word. He said, it's a coping mechanism, and I'm just like, yep. Yeah, yeah, it's sad, it's unfortunate, but it's the truth.

And you know that, I think for me is the thing about this documentary that I will take away as like Chevy Chase, now I understand why he is the way he is, but it doesn't change the behavior, doesn't change him souring the well, it doesn't change. And you know, we meant we mentioned him forgetting his first wife, but I think it's interesting we should mention his second wife, who I think he again weirdly didn't take the opportunity to throw under the buzz oh, because like in a lot of ways, and look, I also can echo this as someone with emotional trauma, mental health issues, and relationship attachment issues. Like chevy Chase made a decision to move somewhere else for someone else. That's what he did.

He chased someone and it I mean, like it's hard to hear and it's hard to see, especially as someone who's done something similar it. It's one of those things where you hope that it doesn't affect you to the extent that it affected chevy Chase, because if it does, then you do look back on it and you're just like, oh fuck. Because most of these things, it's like, oh, I did something like this, and yeah, it had an effect for a year or two, but I was able to get around it. Like chevy Chase should never have left SNL, And I think that is his probably like the moment of his life he could take back. It's probably that I've got to assume really that I think so, because like that's a moment in chevy Chase's life he can never get back.

I'm surprised he did not blame it on her, because that seemed like another ready made excuse. It's just sad that chevy Chase was making decisions not for himself but for what he perceived he wanted, not what he actually needed, because the s and l of it all like it's such a small part of this because he was such a small part of it because of the decisions. I'm the second wife when they have that line, And it's interesting how the line changes when you think back to it, because when you first hear about the second wife and it's like, oh, she doesn't like when I perform because I change and I become a different person, right, And when you first hear that, it's like, Oh, what a harpy. How dares she try to control this guy?

You know, he's this very successful comedian. What are you trying to do to make him stop being a comedian? To make him stop being what's successful? And then when you think about it later on, you're just like, no, he was. Probably that's when the asshole would come out, and he might have been a nice guy when he's not in that mode.

And that's probably the thing. It's like he would get into asshole mode. That was his profession, yeah, or at least he thought, yeah, he thought it was his profession. It just I'm going to be an asshole. But it's like, you gotta know when to turn it off and it sounds like he could turn it off when he was with her one on one, but not other times.

Yeah, and it's to your point, Like my response to it was not she's a shrew and a harpy. It was this woman like was actively trying to get get this version of Chevy Chase away from us. And you know, because he is a talented writer, like that is that is the truth. He's talented in a lot of other things. But I responded more to it as just like what another sad missed opportunity that someone else was trying to take because she I think his wife has clearly done a lot and like Rod said, like in being there for him through the alcohol and drug abuse and putting up with the hell that he put them through.

But this woman was actively trying to prevent all of that by being like, look, dude, you're a fuck when you're doing the comedy comedian, forward facing funny man routine. If you just don't do that, you're He's probably a very mild mannered sad dude probably, Like and I get that, like as someone who's experienced abuse, if you were to deal with me one on one, it's very different from this version of me. Mike knows that, and Rod knows that because I've had to talk with them about my personal life issues. So I get it. It's just sad that he he missed out on an opportunity to be more successful, by missing out on an opportunity to not be a total asshole for the rest of his life.

And it's like, what path does he go down? Well, he goes down the center one instead, where he divorces her, becomes an actor, is successful for a time, but there's no sustain to it whatsoever, Jesus even, I mean, look at his contemporaries. His contemporaries there sustain was longer than him, Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd. I mean, who knows Gilda Radner, John Blushe, Given they passed away so early on in their career, who knows what their sustain would have looked like. Chevy Chase is the black sheep of his own SNL troop that he started with.

I mean, look at who they talk about running into early on, Chris Guest, who has had more success than Chevy Chase has had in the long run. He is a black sheep in his own world, which is kind of crazy in and of itself, because again, the success he had, who knows the success he would have had as a writer, we know, the success he had as an actor. Maybe he would have been a better comedian than all of those things. Maybe he would have been a great musician. You know, he plays piano like a motherfucker every year.

I imagine read music, and I imagine he was a pretty darn good drummer, you know, like he's hanging out with Steely fucking Dan, you know, like would have been kind of cool. Like maybe that's his regret. I don't know. That was like like Forrest Gun moments all at the beginning, like hanging Steely Dan, meeting Chris Guest. It was life, yeah, Danner, Yeah, yeah, we could have prevented Gwyneth Paltrow.

Yeah, Chevy Chase's daughter. Yeah, you didn't get to experience one of his daughters because I watched a I watched Christmas in Connecticut for the feminine critique, because Emily does this whole series of Christmas movies around Christmas time, and especially bad Christmas movies. And we were watching one Christmas in Connecticut, or Chris Christmas in Vermont. Christmas in Vermont. Yeah, and there was a moment where I'm watching the movie and Emily pointed this out on the show, where just like there's this very pointed moment of giving the waitress who's serving our two main characters coffee, and it's just very very like, whoa, why is this waitress getting so much screen time?

This is so odd. It's one of his daughters, and like he must have been like, if you want me, you're going to put this daughter in here too, And it's the one with the darker hair and the dark eyes and stuff. I can't remember, it's the one. And that's the sad moment too, when she's like, oh, I figured that if I could play piano, then my dad would actually come down and talk with me. And it's like, oh that breaks my heart.

You know, this cycle, I mean it's not physical abuse, but that's kind of mental abuse where you're just like ignoring your kids until they like start performing and then you're like, okay, now I'll give you my time. Also, that was awkward because it was directed by fred Olinray. Yes, yeah, that was a yeah, yeah, all about outer wear. That was something yeah, you. Know one thing in the documentary that they didn't have, which I was really surprised because previous to this, it was the bulk of headlines for him was the whole Donald Glover thing.

With Community, they talk about Vetnicole Brown and her situation and the cast is a whole, but they don't get into Donald Glover their thing at all. See, I'm not familiar with that because I just kind of stayed away from Community completely. I just try to stay away from Dan Harmon's stuff more or less exclusively now because, like they mentioned in this documentary, Dan Harmon kind of an asshole as well as a notorious asshole. Frankly, I mean he worked with Justin Royland, also an asshole. So yeah, this asshole train, these assholes are just all riding on a train together in a circle.

I don't know. I still watch Rick and Morty on Mike. Wow, that's surprising. Yeah, yeah, no, I like those early seasons. The early seasons are good.

I'll give you that. I imagine that the community does a lot of the same things that Rick and Morty does, which is very much this look at We're pointing to the machine that runs comedy and the machine that runs a sitcom. So we're just going to point out these things and that becomes the joke. I still kind of like that on Rick and Morty. But I don't know something about Joel McHale just I think it was him that kept me away from the show more than anybody, just because he was such a poor replacement for mister skunk spot when it came to Talk Soup.

I loved Talk Soup so much. And then when they got that new host, and I know that, Why am I blinking at John Henson's name? I know that John Henson was not the original host. I think that was Greg k Yeah, but I loved Henson so much, and then when McHale came in, I was just like, this guy's a smarmy asshole. Well, I was gonna say, it's very funny that you mentioned that, and that Joel McHale isn't in here, because he is also in a group of actors that I would say, are Chevy Chase a Jason Totally?

You know, you know, to go back to the fletch of it all, like Jason Lee, Where was Jason Lee? He should have been interviewed because they had mentioned him a bunch for the fletch, and there's people in here that were Chevy Chase a Jason that didn't show up intentionally like Joel McHale or did show up and admit what the bit that they had been doing their whole time was like Ryan Reynolds, which I mean, look the whole thing with him and his wife and that director of the movie and kind of how he's outed himself possibly is also not a great person. Aside, well, there was no John Landis, and he worked with Landis so many times. There was no Steve Martin, a very little bit of dan Aykroy, but it's like a little bit of Martin short.

It's like when you have one of the amigos but not the other amigo there and then who I'm trying to remember who directed that? That wasn't Frank that was yeahs did he work with Oz? Frank Oz? Oh gosh? But and of course Michael Ritchie's been way dead, so he worked with him a ton of times.

But he couldn't show up. Fuck him, yeah, I know, fuck. You for being dead, asshole director of Fletch. Where were you? Yeah?

And don't forget about out his fantastic job with what what episode did we just drop as we're talking about this, Roberts Dobbins Cops and Robertson's there. Yeah, yeah, yeah's where Jack Palance come on. Jack Palance would say I didn't like him. Well, tell me about the Donald Glover thing, because I don't know that at all. Just the in word business, brod.

I like, it's just the you know, just. You know, I used to call Richard Pryor that all the time and they didn't include the Richard Pryor on the Tonight show where he really lets Chevy Chase have it. Yeah, and you know this, it's the similar story to the vet Nicole Brown. Isn't cole Brant, I guess it is, where it's like, you know. The one that was murdered by the football players.

I'm like, it's a similar deal where he was like people think you're funny because you're black or something, but did allegedly called me in word right well, and he did that. He Chevy Chase did that Papa John's thing where it's like I'm saying that someone else said the N word and it's. Like, oh, dude, you don't you you. Don't need to say it. We know the word you're talking about.

No One when someone says the N word, no one is thinking of any other word period in Western society. But that's the same thing. It's like he's like, well, Colonel Sanders said, and it's like Richard Pryor said, it's like you can't say something. Look and like, let's call them that on live TV. Come on, let's just be clear a bit.

Context matters, because I've heard Mike say the N word with a hard R before all the time, not like that, but in response to the movies that you've seen that have that in the title, you don't not say the name of the title of the movie. The context matters. You're not saying it. You're saying the name of the movie. What Chevy Chase was doing is different.

And it's not okay because we understand and what word you're referencing, my guy, we get it, Like, it's not it's just he can't be surprised anymore that that's the response, even if he didn't call anybody the N word. You said it in a group of people who are actors, Dude, what did you think was gonna like, what'd you think was gonna happen? Chevy, like the most liberal group of people on the planet, and you're just like, ah, N word, Like Okay, good job, Like what were you? It's just it's mind blowing to me. Frankly.

Same with the Papa John's like why are you saying this in a legitimate business setting? Like, because again, these are actors, that's their job. You don't say the N word at your job. How's that? Just keep it there.

Yeah, I'm so surprised Papa John's still in business. Well he doesn't. He's not. He's not with the company anymore. He's a good pizza.

I'm still surprised that, uh, Jimmy Johns is still in business after we've seen the naked photos of the guy, after he's killed animals. It's like, what. Still that killing animals doesn't bother anybody anymore? That's true. I mean the President and sons do it all the time.

Well, we all know that human is the most dangerous animal of all, so it sees it. I think by the end of the documentary with Chevy Chase, I think for me, like Rod said, I just found him kind of sad, but I'm glad he's found his lane because we talked about this. I think Mike, we talked about this on the Christmas Vacation episode where it's like, and now he's just shilling Christmas vacation stuff until he's blue in the face. You know what, The convention circuit ain't a bad racket. Not at all.

No. No, that's like his Instagram these days is just all like, hey, I'm over here, we're watching. I mean, Christmas is his big season. Because he just rolls out Christmas Vacation. I'm surprised he doesn't do like, it's fourth of July.

Let's watch vacation. It's Best Deel day. Let's watch European Vacation. You know it's Guy Fox day. I thought you were gonna say it's best Deal day.

Let's watch the Visitors three. Oh right, everyone wants to see that. Now. Speaking of things that are grow unfunny, I will say it is unfortunate that they glossed over so much of the non successful movies that he made, and we didn't, like Rod said, we didn't get to hear much because there were a lot of stinkers, Like I really hope and you know, maybe in a future life, somebody over it Antenna releasing and I can produce it. But I would love a documentary about nothing but trouble, genuinely, like, because that movie is an insane mess.

But you know there's gotta be some wild stories from the set, and chevy Chase is one of those. He was the fucking lead in the movie. Like you had Dan Akword and Chevy Chase in this documentary. They didn't mention nothing but trouble once, neither one of them. No, they just showed a little bit of a poster with what was it, like nothing but a mess or something like that.

They didn't show any of the things that'd be like what the fuck is this movie? Yeah, it flew through so many of those posters. I was like, no, wait, slow down, pause, go back up, back back. Yeah, even like uh, what was the one Nature calls or whatever like that was actually fairly successful for him, which was. Same with Fletch.

They mentioned Fletch like essentially out of hand, like, oh, I watched Fletch seventy five times with Jay Chander Sakars I was like, that's it pretty much. Like yeah, I mean they've got the clip of him being doctor Rosenswer, but you know otherwise doctor yeah, and a little bit of the uh, you know, I just hit a water buffalo bit, but not very much and like no, Fletch Lives and yeah, none of the stuff about I'd forgotten why Kevin Smith was in this documentary. I never even mentioned why. Like that was my thing. It's like, there are people that are in this that they should have given context, because there's no reason for Kevin Smith to be in this unless you explain the Fletch connection of it all and why, Like again, like they don't even I don't even think they have Kevin Smith saying anything about Chevy Chase other than don't meet your heroes kids.

Well, yeah he does tell that story of like, well, yeah, I always heard these horrible stories and uh nope, they were right. Okay, yeah, always just misunderstand. Well, if they make a Bruce Willis documentary, they'll just have Kevin Smith saying the exact same things. Yeah, run it back, boys, one more time, just run that shit back. He didn't even say his name.

We could just reuse it and pretend like he's talking about somebody else. Yeah. The interview with Jay from Broken Lizard probably is one of the more insightful ones as well. I was really that was great. Again, I don't want to belabor the point, but again, very well put together doc even though there are some things where you're like, yeah, I would have liked more of that.

I mean, they probably had a limited window of what they could run, you know, hour and thirty seven minutes, so that's you know, two hours with commercials kind of thing, right, Okay, but yeah, I'm almost like, give me the longer cut. Right, give me just all the interviews with no, just the interviews with the with the people you talk to, because I'm sure they just they talked for more than five minutes. Oh guys, people who interview people and have interviewed people, we know they don't talk for five minutes. So I would really, I would. Yeah, I would love to see the raw interviews.

And to your point about Jay Chanders, say, car Mike like he's one of the few people that's just like was able to level the good and the bad in a way that nobody else seemed willing or wanting to do, which, as someone who tries to live in that gray area myself, like I appreciate that he was availing himself of being like, yeah, he was kind of an asshole, But can't say I wouldn't work with him again, because I would. And it's like, okay, like that those Uh, those opposing, those diametrically opposed things inside of you. Most people aren't willing to address that and talk about it. And I actually, like you said, Mike, like, it's really interesting and insightful to hear him at one point being like I can't stand this guy, but another time being like and the next day he came in and we were just buddies again, and it's like, you know, I worked with people like that in this industry where it's like we had a bad day and then the next day everything's fine.

It's like if we all forget, I guess I'm supposed to forget have the mind of a memory of a goldfish. I guess ted Lasso's style. I don't know, Like some of this is, you know, people with big egos and big personalities just bumping into big egos and big personalities like that has always kind of been my assumption with why people didn't like Chevy Chase. Now I see that he is more of a factor in it than anything else. But some of this is like, they could probably do a documentary about dan Akhred, and I'm not sure everybody would be positive and thumbs uping dan Akrod.

We're talking about there was a Billy Joel documentary. People weren't thumbs uping Billy Joel the whole time. Now that's that's the way these kinds of things should be. They should be honest and wartson all and upfront. You know, Alex Gibney's documentary about Lance Armstrong is the one I think about.

He was making that documentary and then Lance Armstrong got popped for cheating. It's like the documentary takes on a whole different hue the second half, and it's like that ability to pivot and understand what's going on is so important, and this documentary I think gets to that. But I think this documentary also leaves some things on the table that I think would have been interesting to mine, because there's some stuff here that kind of verges on it. And then the documentary, I think, to your point, Mike is like, well, you know, we don't have that much time. This isn't three hours, it's only an hour and a half.

Right, you don't really get that redemptive art, in part because he doesn't really seem to want to have one in his life, at least not extended beyond his family. But you know, I mean the upside is he's doing the circuit thing, the Christmas circuit, and that's I guess a happy end thing. He's still getting the adoration. I think that's what he really thrives on. You know, he seems to come alive most in the documentary when he's his assistant is reading fan letters and things, like he eats that stuff up.

Can you imagine just being Chevy Chase's friend randomly because you worked with him and you got along, Like, that's such a I love it. I love that, Like I love that there's just this guy who's friends with Chevy Chase that helps him answer his fan mail. And it's like, man, I grew up watching this guy and it's so yeah, but you yeah, but again, like yeah, I'm sure there is a pay to it, obviously, but at the same time, it's like that guy's probably just as wigged out as the rest of us that he's interacting with Chevy Chase on a daily basis and this weirdly personal capacity. If you haven't seen the footage of him at one of these Christmas shows falling off the stage my accident, oh no, years ago. I felt like they should have the documentary with that just to draw it back to the physical humor, saying this was not yeah, this was not planned, and man it is sad to watch, is hard to watch, but yeah, it's it's out on YouTube for you to pull up.

You like when they put these documentaries together, Like I had the same complaint about Mega Doc when we talked about that on the Projection Booth episode about Megalopolis. It feels like these credits are truncated, like they don't include yeah, like they don't even have a cast list. They just have like producers this that you know, additional materials by, here's some songs. There's no oh, cast list whatsoever. And it's so strange that they can just put out a movie like that.

It's like, uh, aren't there requirements that you say who is in the documentary? Like you know, the Mega Doc, Like they don't mention Virginia Madsen who was almost in Megalopolis and she has a scene in that documentary. I'm watching this, I'm just like, well, who is this? Oh? No, I have to go out to IMDb.

And then those credits are kind of strange where it's just like you know so and so wife, so and so, eldest daughter, so, and so middle daughter Kaylie Chase, middle daughter Emily, Chase's youngest daughter. It's like, okay, yeah, but yeah, it's I again, I would like to see a longer cut of this. I could actually probably and God help me, I could probably sit through a Billy Joel length documentary about Jimmie Chase. And like I said, I've seen this three times now, so I obviously have a tolerance for it. There is enough we have heard enough about Chevy Chase over the last thirty plus years that the fact that this documentary is only an hour and a half is kind of nuts because the amount of just things that we've heard.

They we I'd like to point out, we didn't get to hear the story where Chevy Chase came back to SNL and him and Bill Murray got into it. They never even mention that, which I think for me is the more famous SNL story. Over the shows up and acts like an asshole to Terry Sweeney, like the fact that him and Bill Murray got into a literal, goddamn fistfight in the backstage area of SNL, not even mentioned, not even alluded to. I know, Bill Murray's not in this, and it seems like for the obvious reason of that thing having happened, But you would never know that given the documentary, and you know for a fact that somebody talked about it. Somebody was like, hey, Lorne, because Lauren Michaels is in this, would you tell us about the night where Chevy and Bill got into it.

I can't talk about that. Okay, moving on, it's. Pretty telling who from the original cast is here and who's not, you know, like Near Morris showing up and and dan Aykroyd, but you know, Jan Curtin, no, Loray Newman, Nobel Murray, you know, like uh freaking again, going back to Steve Martin, he used to co host or host on that all the time. Yeah, It's just it was interesting who shows up who doesn't. Oh, Paul Simon.

Paul Simon was a big part of. Yeah, speaking up the way they end the doctor, the way they end it. Yeah, and they just abruptly like pull the video. I was like, well, that was odd that they faded out so quickly. You could do ten minutes on that video alone.

Oh right, Yes, it's an iconic video. I was watching it last night. I was like, I was watching it last night I was like, what, why was this not a big like what you're going to show Paul Simon in your in your documentary at one point too, because he was next to Sabrina Carpenter on the stage at SNL Simon. In that the end shot that Rod was talking about. It's like, he's maybe three feet from Chevy and you've got Jane Curtin and I didn't recognize who it was holding the picture of Gilda Radner.

They're right in front of Chevy, and I'm just like, Okay, wonder how awkward that stage was. Verry. Oh, yeah, it gives me anxiety to think about it. And I wasn't a part of any of it. No, this movie kind of gives me anxiety at times.

Yeah, there's also another if you've read that Life from New York book or really another famous story with Will Ferrell and Jimmy and Will Ferrell has the same sort of thing like fuck this guy. I don't remember the specifics of it because it's been a long time since I've read that book, but every now and then it comes back into the headlines or. Yeah, that was interesting. I did go back and look just because I wanted to see how often Variety was talking about this movie and seeing some of the older stories and they were the exact same stories. They're just like, oh yeah, we're going to recycle this community story, going to recycle.

It was just like okay, guys, like you can write new things. You know, It's ok. Here in December, we need to learn that Jim Carrey almost quit the set of The Grinch because he had eight hours worth of makeup apply. He hired a Navy seal or whatever the hell the story is to sit and do it. No, no, no, no no, that's what we need to learn.

How dare you? Yeah, the recycling of the I mean that that fact that that Chevy Chase clip of him berating the director showed up online and was kind of such a sticking point for me. It was like like, okay, like watch the like I'm sure there's some context here that needs to be like understood. I mean, like he's acting like an asshole, but like, where does this play in the documentary? Like right, without context, it makes no sense.

Like, but hey, it's a good sound bite for people who only know the Chevy Chase is an asshole to glom onto and go see see see. It is one of the more bitious ones by far. I uh, I'm glad that this might be the end of the show now, I mean, who knows, we may chevy Chase may do something else. I think it actually would be apropos to end this episode on a higher note, because we haven't asked you, but we have talked about it plenty on our show. What is your favorite chevy chasemer vacation?

The first Vacation Absolutely. I was eleven years old when that came out. I thought it was the funniest movie I'd ever seen. Well, actually the second funniest at the time. Airplane was the funniest.

I think it's still up there for me in the top ten funniest movies ever. I still think it holds up. I know you maybe don't agree after having listen to your episode, but that's it. Fletch comes at a close second, followed by might just be scenes like Old Times just for nostalgia's steak nostalgia's sake, But even some of the movies I mentioned at the beginning of this show, like Growing Up watching over and over, I don't like like Modern Problems under the Rainbow. Despite one specific scene with Kerrie Fisher.

I know exactly what seing. Like. I don't like those movies, but there's still just a big part of my growing up and vacation is it. It remains, it remains the one for me. I think that was Mark Begley's the favorite as well.

I think by the end of the show, so ye would you say Funny Money was his favorite? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, the best movie. One of the best things I've ever watched for anything, Funny Money. Yep.

And I've not seen like The Cops and Robertson's the Thing with Jonathan Taylor Thomas, like, I've not seen any of that. I just I think the last thing I saw Chevy chasing theatrically was his He had a cameo in a movie called Hero with Dustin Hoffman and Gena Davis, one of those gotten movies that you know, no one talks about more. I think it's the last thing I saw Man on screen. But I've not like, I just like I knew those things came out. I was in college at the time, and I just never got around to them.

I need to. I mean, I don't c too. No, I mean, Chevy Chase had a cameo in Last Act. He does that make Last Action Hero Chevy Chase movie. Yeah, what I forgot about that?

One drop? One drop of blood. If there's one spream of Chevy Chase in a movie, it's a Chevy Chase film. That's one of my favorite Projection Booth episodes. It's the Last Action Hero.

Oh good lord, that's a total point, Mike. That's there are a few things that Mike and I are very diametrically opposed on. Last Action Hero is shockingly one of them. So well, you don't try to shove it down my throat like it's a masterpiece and refuse to listen to what I have to say about things because it's. Not a masterpiece.

I'm not delusional. I just like it. It's that episode and Blast of Silence, they're like, man, these are the best. I don't know that Elvira episode is still up there. For me.

That's a third fucking Morning Zoo edition. Bang bang bang bang bang bong the slide whistle at all. Well, I don't think we'll need any slide whistles on this episode. But if people wanted to listen to that episode of your show, Mike, or all the other actually good episodes, not saying the Olvier episode is not good. But let's just say the people that showed up were it weren't up to the snuff.

Where can people find you and the things that you work on, Mike. It's called cringe podcasting and it's available at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. All the episodes of the Projection Booth are over there. What about you, mister Rod Lot? Uh, because I know where my lane is.

I am. I don't have a podcast, but I do still write. I write it flick attack dot com. Have flick attech book two coming out twenty twenty six, guaranteed. Unless I pass away, then it's not.

Going out of the world. God damn, Rod Lot, you don't give a fuck. Apparently, Hey, just put it out there. He's got his ready made excuse. That's the only reason it's December thirtieth.

He's like, okay, just gonna have to open up these beans. No book this year, no. Book this year. So that's where you can find me. As for me, you can find me over at weirdingwaymedia dot com, where this show and all the other shows that we work on can be found.

Like I mentioned, Rod has been on episodes of both my show and Mike's show. If you want to hear Rod, or if you just want to hear me, or if you just want to hear Mike, you now know where to go. As I mentioned, this is the now the last episode of the Chasing Chevy podcast. If you have enjoyed every episode, like rate and review the show wherever you get it. Rod, I'm sure you did not expect to be on the last episode of this show, but here you are.

So thank you for joining us. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. And even if the documentary was about someone who is you know, not great